Dr. Seán Healy:

We are very strong on the choices in our proposals, which when put together are economically sound and socially fair. The European Union's country-specific recommendations for the 2019 budget propose that we should limit the scope and number of tax expenditures, broaden the tax base and prepare for age-related expenditure increases, with all of which we agree. We also welcome the emphasis on the need to improve infrastructure and skills, with which we agree. We also agree with the EU's focus on the need to pay special attention to digital skills, taking account of the new digital strategy and the way the world of work will be transformed by artificial intelligence and so on and the implications of that. We do not believe the Commission has put enough emphasis on the need to address poverty, social housing and healthcare on the scale required. It mentions them but does not give them the priority required.

The sustainable development goals are another matter we consider to be very important. Everybody is familiar with the chart in that respect, which is very colourful setting out the 17 goals, the detail of which we have all grasped. Ireland played a major role as co-chair of the group that put those goals together for the United Nations. Now they are three years old. There are not supposed to be merely a chart on a wall or a desk, rather they are meant to be implemented. All countries have a responsibility in that respect. Let us do that now. We do not believe the plan that the Government has put in place to implement them is sufficient or on the scale required to address them, but it is a beginning. There will be a voluntary report made to the United Nations in July. We are part of a group putting together a shadow report to assist in that. When the Government makes policy decisions, we recommend it should badge each policy decision by the appropriate sustainable development goal. In our policy briefing, which sets all our proposals on the budget, at the top of every page we list the relevant sustainable development goals that apply or that are being met with those particular things.

We propose a slight increase in taxation and investment, particularly in one-off items that do not recur such as social housing, public transport and so on. The proposals we have included are detailed later in the briefing document which I will cover later. We propose an investment of an additional €1.25 billion in social housing, bearing in mind that we have close to 90,000 households on waiting lists for social housing. As for the idea that if we provide 3,500 social housing units, that would be great gaisce, the scale of what is required needs to be seriously taken on board. The current programme for housing is not of a sufficient scale to deal with the problem that exists. Substantially, that would be our top investment.

Our second would be on healthcare and disability. We propose an investment of more than €1 billion, including a one-off allocation of €500 million to get Sláintecare up and running. We also propose an investment of more than €500 million in a rural development programme to provide for regional development with a very strong focus on resourcing communities because communities have lost out badly. They have not recovered the types of funding they had ten years ago.

On the tax side, the key issues are standard rating all discretionary tax expenditures, removing the tax refund element of the research and development tax credit and introducing a minimum effective corporate tax rate of 6%. We also recommend that taxation on diesel and petrol be equalised, that VAT on the accommodation sector be raised to 13.5% and that VAT on food be raised to that level next year.

There is a detailed run-down of our proposals on expenditure, income and tax changes on pages 16 and 17 and a balancing thereof on page 18. We are happy to answer any questions on those figures. We have a policy framework to deliver the five outcomes I discussed - a thriving economy; decent infrastructure and services; just taxation; good governance; and sustainability. We argue that our approach is economically sound and socially fair and would move Ireland towards delivering a fairer sustainable future for all.